Obscure 90’s TV shows celebration

[Bum Bill Bee]

Broggling Harmwarts, am feeling such a wonderful nostalgia high right now. And seeing how I’m a 90’s child I’ve taken it upon myself to talk like Emily the Strange in this post. Good Stuff!

Anyhoozles, the said Nostalgia high comes from my almost simutaneously getting DVD collections of my three favorite short lived underrated TV shows, the Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Due South and Pirates of Dark Water. A list of each of the show’s highlights are as follows:

Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
1. Was practically the only cowboy show around in the 90s
2. Was the last thing to ever use the old Laramie Street Backlot, which had been used in tons of older movies and stuff.
3. Has Bruce Campbell in the leading role as a lwayer turned bouty hunter avenging father‘s death, he did well with the shows tongue and cheek humor, and this is actually the main thing I remeber him from
4. Sidekick is a 6’5” African-Native American bounty hunter who’s all surly and mouthy and can come up with flabberfarking hilarious banter. Is also a super tracker, ex-military, and once wrestled a bear.
5. One of Lord Bowler’s guns got reused in the show Firefly
6. Has kickass theme music that was reused by the Olympics
7. Bruce’s horse was played by 5 different horses, each one with a specific skill set (one only reared up, one only did chase scenes, one talked, ect.)
8. Big theme is “the coming thing” and we see steampunkish prototypes of things like tanks, motorcycles, drive thrus, denim jeans, rockets, ect.
9. Had a big cast of distinct crazy kooky villains, like Pete Hutter who was gay on his firearm. YOU TOUCHED PETE’S PIECE!
10. Almost all the women characters on the show were tough and independent types.
11. Had a weird “violence controversy” which was pressed on only by Senator Byron Dorgan
12. In spite of weird violence controversy, the actual gun fighting is sparse, villains are usually just jailed or die a Disney-death, so really its good for the whole family to watch.
13. The resident butt-monkey is a guy with glasses. Its good to show those nerd types whose boss and put them in their place. Serves ‘em right for ruining our proud traditions with their logic and intelligence and money.

Due South
1. About a Mountie Benton Frasier from the Northwest territories coming to Chicago and staying there for a while.
2. Why in Chicago? Well in nearly every episode he explains to random strangers that he:
“first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father and, for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian consulate.”
3. Has a cute deaf wolf named Diefenbaker who gets addicted to city junk food. Like Brisco’s horse, Diefenbaker also has a way of taking part in conversations.
4. Benton is skilled and knowledgeable in a zillion different things, dirt never clings to him, he’s naïve to city ways in a humorous context, and overly polite.
5. Sidekick is a balding Italian American cop who embodies a bunch of self-deprecating American stereotypes. Is obsessed with driving just 1971 Buick Rivieras.
6. The ghost of Benton’s father frequently appears, to give guidance or humor.
7. Benton can track, sniff, or taste his way to any clue.
8. Groups of men may burst into song for no reason.
9. Part of Benton’s job is to stand statue-still in front of the Canadian Liaison building.
10. A funny thing in the filming sets, in which Chicago scenes are filmed in Toronto and Toronto scenes are filmed in Chicago
11. Benton is a Brittling crazy chick magnet both among characters and fans. But he’s always humble and honest, and lives in a crudbath apartment, which only helps it further.
12. Benton never carries a gun in the states but the one time he uses it in Canada, he’s an insanely good marksman
13. Was cancelled, then uncancelled twice.

Pirates of Dark Water
1. Most of the cast is distinctly not white looking
2. Alien planet with medieval level of technology, and freaking insane monsters and races.
3. MONKEY BIRDS!
4. Main villain has a Godzilla sized ship that’s big enough to have its own sewer system
5. Jim Cummings voice acting!
6. Noy Jitat! There’s a hekuvalot fantastic swearing in this show. We should be concerned about the kids in the audience.
7. “Ecomancer”….ah, the 90s and its creative ways of introducing environmentalism to kiddies.
8. The male 17 year-old protagonist does NOT have and explicitly romantic relationship with the first girl he meets. Your mind. It is blown.
9. Unfinished! Only 8 of 13 magic treasures were collected WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?
10. Supposedly had toys, comics, and videogames made from it. Well wait, I guess that last one isn’t too surprising, since the 90s had games made of freaking every cartoon every made in that decade.
11. Unaired episodes were taped over by scenes of a kitten. NOOOOOOOOOO!
12. It was fairly dark and serious for a kids show, at least in the early episodes. Some guys actually died, none of that “trapped in another dimension” crap that other shows used.
13. Sea animals can get used as projectiles, whips, oxygen masks and all sorts of weird cool stuff.

AHAHAHAHAHHH!

Soooooo, what are some 90s obscure treasure shows that you’d like to share? Mind you, the triple B definition of “obscure treasure” is anything that lasted from 1-3 seasons. Anything that did not last an entire season will be ignored to death and you won't be invited to our grunge-beanie baby-furby-genesis arcade. Anything lasting more than three seasons and you'll be eaten by anthropomorphic ninja mummy dinosaurs with jetpacks.
?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Why would you watch this shit when you could be watching Saved by the Bell- literally the greatest tv show ever. You are dumb.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Anthropomorphic ninja mummy dinosaurs with jetpacks ATTACK!

[Lumenskir]

Seinfeld was pretty good. I think it might have started in '89 though.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Street Sharks. Now that shit was downright jawesome.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

Seinfeld was pretty good. I think it might have started in '89 though.

I was going to say Drew Carey Show as well, though half of it extended into the 2000s. But it did manage to start in 1995.

EDIT: Aha! NewsRadio! The eminent '90s sitcom!

Remember when Phil Hartmann died and they also killed his character off and had the characters highly depressed for a few episodes and talking about his life? Surreal as hell.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Do you remember that time when they were going to drill for oil in Bayside but then Zack stopped it? That was sweet.

And then Jeff the college guy came and stole Kelly from Zak. My childhood died that day.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

Do you remember that time when they were going to drill for oil in Bayside but then Zack stopped it? That was sweet.

And then Jeff the college guy came and stole Kelly from Zak. My childhood died that day.

I'm so excited! I'm so scared!

[Professor Smarmiarty]

FUCK YOU

[Amake]

You may comfortably ignore this show called White Dwarf. A show so obscure, only one episode was ever made, and it's a bitch to try and get your hands on, by piracy or used VHS tapes on Amazon. It had horse carriages and spaceships some ten years before Firefly did, although you never actually see the spaceships.

What it's about is mostly this fantasy world in the shape of an alien planet called Rusta, and its many odd features. There's a night side and a day side that are almost completely cut off from each other, an ocean of blood and a prison that may or may not abuse the immortality powers of some space elves to keep people alive and in chains for hundreds of years. There's also a young doctor who's new to the place and gets to ride around and look at stuff so we get an excuse to see it and have it explained to us, but for an audience substitute he gets into some pretty intriguing relationships.

The thing I found takes it from slightly interesting to haunting is the director's decision to shoot the entire show as a dream sequence. You know how in movies you can tell a scene is going to turn out to be a dream because of one or more of a variety of camera tricks and special effects to induce a surreal sensation, like slightly off colors or lighting or camera angles? I'd think there's a range of more subtle variations that I don't tend to pay attention to, involving pacing or maybe some small variations in characters' mannerisms or appearance. Well, White Dwarf does something like that in every single scene. For some reason. Might just have been an attempt to give the night and day hemispheres different interesting light conditions. But anyway the result is groovy.